The trade of Wisbeach is said to have much increased of late years, through the improved state of the drainage and navigation of the fens, and consequent augmentation of the produce and consumption of the country: and it would, no doubt, have increased much more, but for the bad state of the harbour or river below. The average of the exports and imports amounts to 40,000 tons annually. The principal articles of traffic are coals, corn, timber, and wine. The neighbouring lands are in high cultivation, chiefly on the grazing System. The Sheep and oxen grow to a great size, and considerable numbers of them are fattened, and sent twice every week to the London market. The inhabitants are employed in commerce, there being no manufacture of any kind in the place, though the surrounding country produces immense quantities of wool, hemp, and flax. The market is abundantly supplied with poultry, fish, and butchers meat; and the trade of the town is further promoted by six small fairs, for hemp and flax, horned cattle and horses. The canal, which was completed a few years ago, extending from Wisbeach river to the river Nene at Outwell, and thence to the river Ouse at Salters-Lode Sluice, opened a communication with Norfolk, Suffolk, and other counties, and has already benefited the town considerably. {104} The Summer Assizes, and the January and Midsummer quarter sessions for the Isle of Ely, are held at Wisbeach; where the magistrates assemble also every Wednesday and Saturday to settle the assize of bread, and for other purposes. The chief Justice of the Isle, and all other magistrates are appointed by the bishop, who is here invested with temporal as well as spiritual jurisdiction. The education of youth at Wisbeach is provided for by a free school, and two charity schools, supported by voluntary contributions. The appointment of Master of the Free-School is vested in the Capital Burgesses, with the consent of any other ten inhabitants, having voices in the election of those Burgesses. It appears that the Trinity Guild used to allow the Schoolmaster the annual salary of 10_l._ 6_s._ 8_d._ and that they also distributed annually among the poor the sum of 3_l._ 15_s._ which last sum, as Mr. Hutchesson assures us, has been continued invariably to this day. But 3_l._ 15_s._ is now a very paltry sum, indeed, compared to what it was in the 15th and 16th centuries. Its value now is scarcely a tenth part of what it was then. {105}